Andrew Poppy - …And The Shuffle Of Things

When a best of doesn’t have to be a compilation

To many this may feel like a best of Andrew Poppy. It’s not a compilation, though, it’s 10 brand new recordings that draws many of the diverse threads of the electronica/classical composer’s work from the past 20 years together into one complete whole. My Stress Mistress and Wave Machine Parts II and III will be the entry point for those who discovered Poppy via his early 90s album Recordings. What Else: What Then Now, on the other hand, links bank to the minimalism of his highly collectable early 00s CD-Rs and private pressings such as Why Blink.

The written word has always played a part in Poppy’s work, though this abstract poetry has hitherto been confined to sleevenotes. Shuffle, however, has incorporated it into the music, with Andrew himself reading a mixture of memoirs, memories and ideas (which sometimes overlap with Yoko Ono’s instruction pieces) across the music.

Tracks such as the rattling, dream-like My Father’s Submarines wouldn’t sound out of place on a Mute or 4AD sampler, but only Andrew Poppy can drop in an entire male voice choir (an original recording, not a sample) to make a finished piece that lifts this track, and the whole album, right up into another world entirely.

Field Radio | FR 1008

Reviewed by Ian Peel
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